Sunday, May 10, 2015

The Apple Watch E-Collar for People

Why is the Apple Watch such a big deal? Well, there are tons of really neat things about the Apple Watch. It is personal. It is intimate. It knows your heartbeat. It tracks your steps. It empowers emotional communication.

But, in essence, what are we really looking at here? After adding everything together, what is the Apple Watch’s game-changing super power?

One word: habits.

The Apple Watch can change your habits unlike any device before it.

... Combine convenience, knowledge of your current habits, and effective nagging and you have a lean, mean, habit building machine. I believe the killer apps for the Apple Watch will be those that take advantage of this unique superpower to make you a better person.The Apple Watch can change your habits unlike any device before it.

You’re waiting in line for a coffee, eyeing a pastry, and your wrist-watch buzzes with a warning.

Flashing on the tiny screen of your Apple Watch is a message from an app called Lark, suggesting that you lay off the carbs for today. Speak into the Apple Watch’s built-in mic about your food, sleep and exercise, and the app will send helpful tips back to you.

In order for wearables to fulfill the promises of positive behavior change, Fogg says they must “help you see that you are succeeding.” This imperative is not so much a matter of self-esteem as of physics. A positive spark is required for a feedback loop to ignite. For this reason, Fogg suggests starting small. His research shows that small actions properly reinforced are the most reliable channel for large permanent changes in people’s lives. He refers to these seeds of change as ”baby steps” or “tiny habits.”
Another important factor is diversity. Not everyone wants to do the same things. In order to trigger an action you have to do three things: match a person with the action they want to do, give them the opportunity to do that action and let them know that they have done the action successfully. As with a sales conversion, if any of these three components is missing the person “falls out of the funnel.”

The Apple Watch is a particularly good medium for delivering these triggers. It has sound, vibration and visuals to get your attention. It also has location and time-awareness. Finally, it is connected to your data/identity complex in the cloud. These capabilities give app developers unprecedented ability to deliver the right trigger at the right time in the right place to motivate you to do the things you have indicated you want to do.